Leadership Torque

What Differentiates a Leader From a Follower? "Creative Thinking"

I want those who lead me to be able to think about the things that matter to me, or stand in my way, or are obstacles to my advancement, and solve those things in ways that I am yet to think about. That's why they are my leaders, and I am not!

All of us have the ability to think creatively, just most of us never access that ability or apply it in a way that benefits others. Leaders need to do this as it separates them from followers. A person who arrives at a creative idea or solution, gets there before anyone else, and therefore by definition, if others want that idea or can benefit from that solution, then that creative person is leading the way.

I believe there are a number of things one can do to expand their creative potential:

• Open yourself up to creative influences (Movies, business books, you tube clips): What creative influences do you open yourself up to?
• Look at life through a creative lens: What do you think is the largest factor that stops you being creative?
• Challenge yourself to think beyond the obvious: When was the last time you looked beyond the obvious? How did that happen?
• Refuse to settle with how it’s been done before or by someone else: Do you like to settle with how it’s been done before?
• Ask others what they would do: What is the last creative insight you received from someone else who stretched your thinking?

Creativity is something to be enjoyed, so enjoy it!

Too much influence???

I was pondering to today how someone grows in their creativity as a leader. I think it's a combination of opportunity, initiative, imagination, and input from others.

However I think if we have too much input from others it actually hampers our creativity, because we end up just copying great ideas we've heard about or seen. Whilst this is not a bad thing, if we rely upon only this we can damage what we are building by introducing something that doesn't fit our identity, or we can actually dry up our creative reserves that reside within us to be used or worse still, we can become dull to the guiding voice of God, because instead of looking to him for inspiration we are waiting and listening to find the latest cutting edge voice from someone else.

I say this because I am growing to conclude that often we will listen to a sermon, read a book, watch a movie or rely on a conference for some inspiration or resourcing, to help us better our ministries when actually we should be still ourselves to hear from God.